Arizona – Under the leadership of new GM Kevin Towers, the Diamondbacks have already begun the process of rebuilding by trading away Mark Reynolds and letting Adam LaRoche and Brandon Webb leave via free agency. They seem extremely unlikely to compete this season, but will look for improvements from Justin Upton and Stephen Drew.

Colorado – The Rockies spent their offseason spending money on contract extensions, as both Carlos Gonzalez and Troy Tulowitzki were signed to long term contract extensions. The team also did well to re-sign some of their free agents, most notably Jorge de la Rosa. This really seems like a team to me that has the chance to compete for the division title, providing they get a few breaks to go their way. They will look for a repeat performance from Ubaldo Jimenez and improvements from Jhoulys Chacin and Dexter Fowler as well.

Los Angeles – With the ownership situation in a state of partial disarray, the Dodgers didn’t really go out and spend a lot of money this offseason. They did resign free agent starter Ted Lilly, but otherwise did not make any large acquisitions. The pitching staff is excellent, but they will look for a bounce back season from Jonathan Broxton as the closer. The Dodgers are another team that seems to me like they can compete, providing they catch a few breaks.

San Diego – The biggest news out of the Padres this offseason unfortunately was the trade of star first baseman Adrian Gonzalez. They have cut payroll down to a very minimal amount at this point, and could look to move closer Heath Bell if they fall out of contention. I am not seeing a repeat of last year’s 90 win performance out of this group of players, but I don’t think they are necessarily going to be terrible either. They will look for Mat Latos to build on his excellent 2010 season and try to take another step forward, but there’s a lot of questions after him in the rotation.

San Francisco – The reigning World Champions only had one slightly major acquisition (Tejada), but did well to resign Pat Burrell and Aubrey Huff. Their pitching could conceivably be better than last year, with Madison Bumgarner making a full season of starts this year. 2010 NL Rookie of the Year Buster Posey will be up for the full season this year, and top prospect Brandon Belt is not likely to be in AAA for very long either. This is a team that could compete for the NL crown again.

Overall Thoughts

The NL West has the Giants at the top, and then a lot of question marks behind them. I honestly think that any of the teams at 2 through 4 could finish in any order in those spots. Here’s my predicted order of finish:

The Yankees have really not done very much in the draft, and there’s probably two main reasons for that: 1) They generally have picks later in the round due to all this winning, and 2) They’ve had a tendency to sign Type-A free agents and lose their draft picks as compensation. That said, they still have found some very good players through the draft. Clearly the best one has to be Derek Jeter, who will end up in the Hall of Fame one day. Of late, they’ve gotten solid performance or value out of recent 1st rounders Phil Hughes, Joba Chamberlain, and Ian Kennedy. Jorge Posada was someone who I thought was an international free agent, but was actually drafted and has clearly been elite at times as well.

International Free Agency

The Yankees have done their best work in the international free agent market, with so many players found out of the Dominican Republic and of course Japan as well. So many of them have either turned into excellent players themselves (Rivera, Matsui, Cano), or have been turned into key players at the time (Contreras, Soriano, Cabrera). Clearly, not all of their work in this market has been amazing (See Igawa, Kei), but with the amount that they spend on payroll they clearly have the ability to absorb any issues.

Overall Grade

A. The Yankees receive my first grade of A, mostly because the team has managed to find homegrown players for nearly every position and part of the rotation. That said, I think they are behind the rest of the teams left because they simply have the ability to absorb such large contracts and can literally outbid other teams if they want a player bad enough. I do think it has been interesting to watch over the past few seasons as the team has really made a concerted effort to not just trade away all their prospects for veterans.